


Her, Not Him

by marinawoolf



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:27:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinawoolf/pseuds/marinawoolf
Summary: For some reason, Kara and Lena can't realize they have feelings for each other. Instead, Kara thinks Lena has a thing for James and Lena continues to suffer from compulsory heterosexuality because she's too scared to admit her feelings. This is pretty much rewriting the Reign episode from the Christmas party on, and I'll probably just continue after that.





	Her, Not Him

Chapter 1: Not Just a Girl Crush

Lena Luthor had been called a lot of different things in her life. However, only one person’s opinions on her really mattered. That person has called her friend, sister, and now James Olsen’s love interest, but she didn’t want to be any of those things to Kara Danvers. Well, friend was much appreciated at the time, but Lena hadn’t wanted to be friends since the first time Kara pushed her glasses up the brim of her nose in her office with Clark Kent. The word sister hurt, but at least she had been a full bottle of wine in when it was said. Liking James though? How could Kara think that? Lena spent hours worrying that she was too obvious with her stares and insatiable lip bites, but apparently Kara interpreted this to mean she had chemistry with a man who continually undermined her and tried to discredit her. 

Sam eagerly nodded with Kara about Lena’s interest in James, but Lena could’ve sworn she winked at her when she agreed. Although she had known her for years, she had never said anything to Sam about her attraction to women. Perhaps she thought they were never close enough despite Sam’s insistence on them being friends. Lena always assumed she was too busy with her daughter to pay any mind to her outside of work. Of course Lex knew, but she might as well have come out to a potted plant for all the good that did her. She had toyed with the idea of publicly coming out through a CatCo article, and she had really invested some time into that notion when Kara suddenly became National City’s resident Lena Luthor reporter. However, clearing the Luthor name meant keeping it out of controversy and while she mostly accepted her identity as a lesbian, she feared what others may think. At least maybe L Corp would bring a different word to mind instead of her last name. However, those had all been mere fantasies she played with at night after working until two or three when she sat on the couch of her office, staring out the window, wondering if Supergirl would fly by. For as much as she was in love with Kara (in love, oh how she loved to say it in her head), she felt a similar pull towards Supergirl. For one, they looked alike with the bouncy blonde hair and brightening smile that felt like a summer morning. Lena wouldn’t mind if Supergirl turned out to be in love with her instead of Kara, but if Kara thought she had feelings for James, surely Supergirl thought the same. After all, they were close, probably closer to each other than either was with Lena.

“Lena! Lena?” Kara said, smiling so that her dimples were on full display. “You’re totally blushing.”

“I am not.” Lena looked at the little scar on Kara’s forehead and felt rose petals bloom across her cheeks. Oh no, now she was blushing.

“You are so into James!” Sam said, giggling. 

“It’s alcohol glow.” Lena’s face turned redder. She swore if these weren’t two out of her three friends in the world, she would have been a bit more aggressive in her denial. “Come on, just drop it. We’re failing the Bechdel test right now.”

“Ohhhhkay,” Kara said, smirking at her.

Lena could feel herself giving Kara that look, the one where her entire face fell slack and her eyes could only see that perfect face. She pulled her bottom lip beneath her teeth and just looked. Kara playfully shook her head back at her, like this was still about James. Hadn’t Kara been totally in love with him? What an odd way to cope with that. Well, it wasn’t as if Mon-hell had exactly given Kara healthy standards for how to behave romantically. Sam and Kara finally dropped the subject of James, and they returned to more normal conversation. Lena covertly picked up the pace of her scotch drinking. At least she wasn’t too inebriated when Kara told Sam and her how much she meant to them this past year. Kara floated over to Winn and Sam went to join Ruby and Alex. Meanwhile, Lena looked at James over the rim of her glass. Sure, he was objectively a good looking man. Tall, super fit, kind smile. She just felt for him what she did a complicated math problem: a strong sense of appreciation. Looking around the party and sitting alone at the counter, a familiar feeling crept upon her. Even surrounded by people whose company she enjoyed, she felt the isolation cold as the weather outside. After slinging back another glass of scotch, she walked over to Kara.

“This party was magnificent, but I really should get going. I have some work to do,” Lena said, slurring only a little bit. 

“Lena, come on! It’s the holidays,” Kara said and placed her hand on Lena’s forearm to steady her. Always so perceptive.

“Yeah, there’s nothing to do over at Catco,” James cut in. Oh God, he really did like her. Lena tried to hide her grimace with a smile.

“I need to go,” Lena said. “Goodbye everyone!”

After her abrupt exclamation and a weak wave, she left the apartment. However, the soft sound of Kara’s footsteps followed.

“Let me call you an Uber,” she said softly.

“Aren’t I one of the hottest young billionaires? I don’t need one of my employees to call me an Uber,” Lena said, not even trying to withhold the Luthor’s signature ability to shut someone down with scathing remarks.

“I just want you to get home safely.”

“Maybe Supergirl can come pick me up,” Lena said, trying to ease the tension, but only making it worse due to her ignorance. “I could just call Jess, or Eve. She would definitely drive down here.”

“Eve?” Kara smirked, and Lena felt like throwing up partly because she always felt that when Kara smirked and partly because she had gone way past her stomachable drinking limit. “She definitely has a girl crush on you.”

“A girl crush? Not just a crush?” Lena wobbled.

“You’re right. Probably a crush.”

“Do you have any crushes, Kara Danvers?”

“You.”

They stared at each other as if Morgan Edge had lit the fuse for a bomb between them.

“You--you said girl crush right? If I had a girl crush?” Kara pushed her glasses up.

“Yeah, girl crush.”

“Well, then yeah. You and Sam.” She paused a moment. “Supergirl too.”

Suddenly, Lena didn’t feel like standing with Kara alone anymore. Maybe Supergirl actually would swoop in and break up the awful tension. She should’ve had at least one more drink.

“I’m calling my driver now. Thanks Kara,” she said without taking her phone out.

“Hey, all that stuff about James. I’m just trying to help, you know? Sometimes, you seem so lonely and unavailable, and I think it would be good for you.”

“I have you.” Lena didn’t feel like quickly adding that she had Sam too because she didn’t want to talk about friendship anymore.

“That’s not enough sometimes.”

“My car’s here,” Lena said, turning to walk away.

Lena briskly walked towards the elevator. When she got to the ground floor, she looked for any car that was pulling up to the sidewalk, and by some miracle a black Honda parked in front of them. She flung open the backdoor and slid into the car.

“Good evening. Could you take me to L Corp? Thank you. I’ll reimburse you with one hundred dollars.” The driver of the car, a middle aged red-haired woman, looked bewildered. “Two hundred?” 

Without asking any questions, this complete stranger took Lena to L Corp, and true to her word, Lena paid her two hundred dollars. Standing in front of her company’s building she realized that after several assassination attempts that was perhaps not the smartest move. At least a woman was driving. It tended to be men who tried to murder her. However, even if it had been an attempt on her life, she wouldn’t have needed to fear because seconds after the car pulled away, Kara flung her clothes off so she could fly above and make sure Lena got home safely without telling anyone else at the party. After she watched the car drive far far away from Lena, Kara hung in the sky to watch her. 

She actually couldn’t believe that she had sort of confessed her feelings for Lena. That girl crush cover-up was moderately weak at best. It was a good thing Lena liked James because she probably didn’t even notice Kara’s Freudian slip. It felt strange to Kara that she had been so madly infatuated with James and now she could care less that he was the one Lena wanted. The thing that hurt was that Lena wanted anyone who wasn’t her. She hadn’t even realized what her feelings towards Lena were until the plane incident. After all of the constant thoughts about Lena and little things Kara did to make sure they spent as much possible time together, Kara realized that her relationship with Mon-el was a cover-up to ignore the reasons behind her desire to constantly seek out Lena. She didn’t know how to face the fact that she didn’t love Lena Luthor, but was in love with her. No wonder she was always nervous before work ever since Lena bought CatCo. Never before had Kara spent so much time getting ready in the morning. Once Lena had complimented her checkered slacks, and Kara wore them every other day for two weeks until Lena made another comment about how she wore them a lot. Even after all the times she and Lena had saved each other’s lives, she couldn’t figure out her feelings. That night with the plane somehow unlocked it all.

If she had to pinpoint the moment of clarity, it would had to have been when Lena told her to let go. Kara could sacrifice Mon-el when the world needed her to, but when she was asked to do the same for Lena, she couldn’t. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her to let Lena die. Life on Earth without Lena didn’t seem like an appealing life even at the risk of so many others. Even now she laughed aloud thinking about how Supergirl’s weakness was a Luthor. In that moment, she stopped seeing Lena as her friend too. Friends don’t feel for each other what she did for Lena. Carrying Lena back to safety brought flashback upon flashback of their times together. The time she punched cement into dust when nobody believed her Lena was innocent sure seemed like a pretty clue to her feelings. Hadn’t Lena also been the one to suggest Kara should be a reporter when she was losing her way? She took the advice like ecstacy. Lena even convinced her to “unquit.” Amazing how a woman top of her class at MIT can also make up her own words like that. Everything she had done seemed to be touched by Lena ever since they met, and she even recalled an off-hand comment Clark made a couple months later when they were chatting on the phone. Kara had been explaining how lucky she was to have been on the phone with Lena when Lillian’s henchmen pushed her off her balcony so that she could save her from falling.

“You carried her bridal style I bet,” Clark had said.

“Yeah?” At the time Kara didn’t understand why he said this.

“That’s my favorite way to save Lois.”

She felt like an idiot for the fact that it took her months to realize he was saying she and Lena were like him and Lois. Maybe if she would have realized her feelings sooner, this James nonsense wouldn’t have occurred. The worst part of it was that she feared James reciprocated Lena’s feelings. While he acted like she was a human version of the plague up until maybe a week or so ago, how could he not have feelings for her? Come to think of it, Kara couldn’t imagine how any person didn’t have feelings for Lena or at the very least utterly adore her. Maybe she should punch some concrete again. Instead she looked back down to see if Lena was still standing there. When she saw that she had left, she flew up to the balcony of her and now Sam’s office where Lena coincidentally sat with a glass of water.

“Supergirl,” she exclaimed, trying to sound not totally wasted. “Always a pleasant surprise.”


End file.
